


Halcyon Days Gone Bye

by fairest



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Collection, F/M, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, Kinda, Slow Burn, bamf Felicity, mentions of oliver/laurel, mentions of oliver/others, more tags will be added as there are more chapters, not beta'd at all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-01-24 11:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1603598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairest/pseuds/fairest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was all his fault that she was here instead of her cubicle at QC, and now they were stuck on this hell.</p>
<p>Or, Oliver takes Felicity instead of Sara with him on the yacht and everything is exactly the same and very different simultaneously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. burned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first written series in years, and due to the good response on tumblr, I shifted it to here.
> 
> This series will jump around a lot, but everything will eventually be covered. A lot of it will be different, though, due to Felicity's presence. :)

“Oliver?”

It’s the stark terror in the voice that draws him out of the stupor he’s been in since he watched his father put a gun to his own head and pull the trigger. Blinking, the fog clears from his eyes and he turns to look at the blonde next to him and can’t help but feel a pang of regret low in his stomach from looking at her sunburnt features. She shouldn’t have even been here and it is only due to his selfishness that she is.

Petite hands are white knuckling the scraps of the shirt she had been wearing when the yacht went down, leaving her long trim legs (even the guilt isn’t enough to make him stop admiring the trim form of the girl beside him for long) bare to the bright sun.

He can’t see her eyes behind the flashing lenses of the surprisingly still in tact glasses. He swallows. “Yeah?”

“Wh-What’re we going to do?” Felicity asks, nervously twisting the fabric of the shirt between her fingers. He hears tears behind the deceptively steady voice. Oliver is well aware that as much as he is not suited for being on a raft in the middle of the ocean with no way to get home, she is even less so. She had told him only minutes after they had met that she was the ‘hide behind the computer screens’ kind of girl, not the kind to go off for a month on a yacht with someone she didn’t even know.

And yet she had, and now they were both going to die out here next to the body of his dead father.

Scooting over as much as he could in the bobbing life raft, closer to Felicity and further away from the body, he pulls off his noticeably more intact shirt and hands it to her. “I don’t know,” he tells her, figuring it’s better to be honest than a coward for once in his life, however short it winds up being. It will be his fault if Felicity dies, and he deserves this. “Maybe we’ll find an island or a plane will see us or something.

He looks at the too-small stash of food and water that had been grabbed before the boat sunk, considering. They have enough supplies for a day or two. It would be longer if there was only one person in the boat, and he briefly considers mimicking his father’s actions from just a little while ago (minutes? hours? he can’t tell how much time has passed since his father put a bullet in his brain) but almost immediately dismisses the thought. He is much too selfish to do such a selfless act.

Looking over at Felicity again, he notices that she seems to have grown smaller in the blistering sun, curling in on herself as if the sun was sapping out everything that had made her seem larger than life to him when they first met. He knows that he could never consider making himself the lone survivor of the Gambit. While it may be a mercy to offer her the gun, he knows that he cannot be alone. Felicity Smoak, he has already discovered, is stronger than her diminutive frame would suggest and she is stronger than he is.

He is falling apart at the seams already, and this almost stranger looks far more collected than he feels, despite the tears he can see clumped in her lashes. He knows instinctively that he will not survive this without Felicity Smoak. As much as it is his fault she is here with him (because he is a stubborn ass who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘no’ and is terrified by the idea of moving into an apartment with a woman he’s only partially sure he loves), it is now his responsibility to get her home safe and sound. He will bring this IT intern home if it kills him.

He lifts an arm and slides it over her shoulders to bring her closer and tuck her against his side, the for once platonic movement helping to shield Felicity from the sun, if only slightly. She is rigid against him for all of two seconds before sniffling indiscreetly and tucking her face against his side.

He tightens his grip on her shoulder and presses a kiss to her hair. Yes. He will bring Felicity Smoak home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You should definitely come say hi to me on [tumblr.](http://tititilani.tumblr.com/)


	2. survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity begins to learns necessary skills. Oliver takes a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of bamf!Felicity in this one. Spoilers for 1x03.
> 
> This is the last chapter that was already written. I intend to have a chapter out every couple days, as they don't take very long, but I don't know for sure. Not beta'd either, so forgive any mistakes. 
> 
> Considering I'm so rusty at writing, I would definitely appreciate some feedback on whether I should keep going.

He knows without even looking that she is looking at him. He can feel her eyes drilling holes into his back, waiting for him to say something. An apology, an explanation, anything.

He doesn’t know if he can.

His shoulder aches and burns, the torn muscle and skin causing pain to radiate dully down his arm all the way to his fingertips. He knows, even without looking at it and Felicity’s determined but inexperienced stitches, that it will scar. His body, once pristine and unmarked, is now deformed. He hasn’t fully processed it, having shoved the thought of the ugly, puckered wound to the back of his mind behind a heavy door until he could sit and comprehend the terrifying turn his life has taken so far.

Compartmentalizing, Felicity called it. He thumbs the worn edge of the photo in his pocket absently.

Thoughts returning to the blonde, he turned slowly to face her. Her eyes, calm behind the glittering lenses of her glasses, look back at him steadily. The idea that this girl, this sweet naïve intern, has enough faith in him to rely on him is astonishing. He knows she knows of his reputation, of how he devours innocent, virginal things like her and leaves them broken and used (and would have done the same to her if the yacht had not gone down), and she still has this kind of belief in him. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he is not a good man, not worthy of this unshakable faith. 

Moments before he is about to say something, Yao Fei walks in, holding a small wooden cage containing a bird. Yao Fei places the cage between them with a pointed look in Oliver’s direction. Mystified, he glances at Felicity, who looks back at him with an almost expectant look. After looking at him steadily for a moment, Yao Fei turns and re-kindles the fire, seemingly disappointed.

“Oliver,” Felicity’s quiet voice comes from his good shoulder and he gives her a look. The look in her eyes in far too knowing, leaving him like he is the last one to know. Again. “I think he wants you to kill the bird.”

Revulsion builds up quick and hot in the pit of his stomach. “I can’t kill the bird,” he told her, voice shooting up several octaves at the mere idea of killing something. “He’s making his food right now, why can’t we just have some of his?” As the words leave his mouth, he realizes what a petulant dickhead he sounds like, though his stomach growling makes him uncaring. The smell of cooking meat fills the small cave.

She looks at the quietly cooing bird regretfully and shrugs. “Maybe he wants to teach us something.”

He shakes his head resiliently at the mere idea, twisting his body so he doesn’t have the see the small animal. “I can’t. I won’t.” Adrenaline pumps hot through his body and his gaze flicks nervously to and from Felicity again and again.

Her small hand covers his larger one, and when he finally focuses on her for a few seconds, she offers him a tentative but reassuring smile. “Hey, it’s okay,” she soothes. “I can do this one, and you can do the next, okay?” He sees the minute trembling in her hands even as she reaches for the cage with the bird and for a brief moment he despises himself and his cowardice. He cannot kill this tiny thing and so Felicity must if they are to survive.

Felicity visibly swallows before she reaches in and pulls out the bird. It takes a moment later for her to firm her grip so the bird doesn’t escape and she looks over at Yao Fei with an unsure look. Their rescuer (kidnapper?) has a look akin to approval on his face and he demonstrates how to quickly snap the bird’s neck in the air. The small blonde exhales before a determined look crosses her face and in one brutally efficient movement, she snaps the bird’s neck with a quiet crack. Oliver is almost certain he sees her murmur an apology to the body.

Cradling the limp body in her hands, she moves closer to Yao Fei who begins to show her how to pluck the feathers from the body. Felicity has the same look she wore when they first met, one of singleminded determination as she mimics what Yao Fei shows her.

She offers him a tremulous smile over her shoulder even as she slides a sharpened spit through the small body and Oliver feels something clench in his lower stomach at the sight.

Even tattered and terrified, she is beautiful in her ferocity to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come over and talk to me on [tumblr.](http://tititilani.tumblr.com/)


	3. crashed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity meet a man who might be able to help them get off the island. If he doesn’t kill them first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am apparently terrible at keeping these pretty short, oops. 
> 
> Spoilers for Betrayal, 1x13. Mentions of some violence, but no other warnings, I think. 
> 
> I'm kind of indecisive on how good this one is.

Her hand is tiny in his.

Her hand is so small, but there is so much strength held in the slender digits that he swears he can feel it bleeding into him by their simple but poignant contact. He tightens his grip as they stumble over an exposed root, and he can feel her do the same. He knows without looking that she has a bruise that is forming beautifully on her cheek, with bags taking up residence under her eyes. Despite that, her hands remain firm and her belief in him steadfast.

Even as they both pored over the map Yao Fei had snuck him after ‘killing’ him, neither of them were completely certain that they were heading the right direction. He had never paid any attention to how to read a map, and she had already confessed to having no sense of direction and a preference for her GPS to do the work. He didn’t know what to expect when they hopefully got to where ever it was Yao Fei had sent to them. For all he knew, he was leading them directly into a trap. Which, considering the way Yao Fei had already betrayed them once, wouldn’t have surprised him.

So here he was, Oliver Queen the playboy screw up, leading a naïve girl to what could quite possibly be their death.

“Oliver, look,” Felicity hisses, coming to an abrupt stop. “I think that’s what Yao Fei was trying to send us to.” Following her pointed finger, he looks and finds a plane. Or, well, the remains of a plane. He could see where it has been gutted open and split into pieces, with miscellaneous parts scattered over the field, more likely thrown there when the plane crash landed.

Felicity moves forward, stepping past him as she moves in front of him. Automatically, he shifts forward at the mere prospect of her being exposed and they wind up shoulder to shoulder. His hand slides down to press lightly to the small of her back as they slowly cross to where the plane rests. He feels like all of his senses are simultaneously running at top speed and adrenaline hasn’t stopped pumping through his body since they landed on this godforsaken island.

He feels simultaneously exhausted and wired.

Oliver moves to step into the plane but Felicity yanks on his arm. “Wait!” She hisses. “What if it’s a trap?” The underlying doubt leaves his chest aching anew. The fact that she has already lost a bit of that naïveté is gut wrenching. He may be just as naïve, but he was never as innocent as she was when they first met, and now, neither is she. Yao Fei’s betrayal probably bothered her than it had him, just due to the fact that the traitor had almost definitely showed preference to her over him.

“If it was a trap, then you have done a piss-poor job of not letting me hear you.” An accented (English? Australian? He is shit with accents) voice comes from within the bowels of the plane as a broad-shouldered man steps into the light. At the sight of the sword in his hand, Oliver blanches and pulls Felicity behind him, putting himself between her and the stranger holding a weapon. Even he can see that the man means business.

The man lifts the swords and rests the tip against Oliver’s throat with the ease of frequent practice. “You have two seconds to tell me something I believe before I slit your throats.” Oliver freezes, tongue thick in his mouth as he tries to think of something that won’t end up in them dead. In Felicity dead.

“Yao Fei sent us!” Felicity blurts out from behind him. “He gave us a map and keys and everything and I don’t think it was for you to kill us. Even if he did already kind of kill Oliver.” She fumbles to pull out the crinkled map and flashes it at the man for further proof. The sword slowly lowers from his adam’s apple and he reflexively swallows. The man snatches the map out of Felicity’s grip and examines it. Without another word, he tosses the sword to Oliver, who only by some miracle manages to catch it and not slice off a finger. He pulls out another one from behind him.

“I think I know why he sent you,” the man says. “He wants you to help me. I need to make sure you can fight first.” He moves forward at the last word, swinging down hard. The sound of ringing metal vibrates and it takes no time for him to be disarmed despite his best efforts. “To say you fight like a girl would be a compliment.” There is a “Hey!” from Felicity that almost makes him want to smile despite the terrible circumstances.

“Yeah, well, we’re not soldiers,” Oliver bites out. “We were stranded here and I accidentally killed the guy who was in these clothes.”

“Where was Yao Fei?” The man’s tone goes significantly colder.

Oliver looks back at Felicity, who looks petrified. “He told us to run, and we did.”

The man’s face darkens and he lashes out with the fist wrapped around the pommel of the sword. Pain explodes in Oliver’s cheek and the last thing he hears is Felicity screaming his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on my [tumblr](http://tititilani.tumblr.com/) a lot, so come say hi.


	4. meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girl is not his type. That doesn't stop him from gravitating towards her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is a bit late, guys. I got busy doing stuff, but it's here now!
> 
> No warnings for this chapters, other than a very brief mention of sex and mentions of spousal cheating. It's barely a mention, it's that brief. 
> 
> I will probably have the part where he asks her to come with him on the boat in another part. :)

It’s not like the girl is really his type.

He likes his women tall and dark-haired, svelte with dark eyes. Tall, dark, and gorgeous was most definitely his preferred type and there has been enough trial and error for him to be reasonably certain of this. Not to mean that he doesn’t branch out on occasion, but for the most part he stays with what he prefers. It was the majority of the reason he became interested in Laurel, after he realized that she had gone from the awkward girl he had always known to the smart bombshell law student.

This girl, with her rather frumpy dress and meek blonde ponytail, is hardly what he normally preferred. It was clear she was intelligent, he had already been informed that if he needed help with his computer to track her down, but nothing else had really stood out from her.

That being said, Oliver couldn’t figure out why it is she was still on his mind. He’d only had one brief conversation with her, which mostly consisted of her babbling out apologies after running into him and spilling his coffee. Maybe it was the fact that when she finally managed to reign in the babble, she had offered a sheepish smile with her tongue poking out between her teeth. His first gut instinct was to wonder if she was a biter. It had not been a reaction he was expecting.

“Hey, what’s with you?” The voice breaks through his thoughts and Oliver snaps back to the present. He meets the amused but curious brown eyes of Tommy. An all-too-knowing smirk curls the corners of his best friend’s lip. “I know that look. Who is it this time? That hot model from the club last week? The one who was insistent on you knowing she had no gag reflex?”

Oliver can’t quite stop himself from grinning at the mention of the model. He had wound up testing out her claim later that night, not that he had ever let Laurel know. At the mention of his girlfriend there was a brief stab of regret but he shrugged it off just as quickly. “Nah. It’s no one, really. Just this girl at my dad’s company. An intern.”

Tommy looks amused. “What’s she look like?”

Oliver thinks for a moment. “Blonde, glasses. She talks a lot. She’s…cute.” Tommy lifts an eyebrow.

“Not exactly your type. What’s got you so tied up about her?”

“Hell if I know.”

___

“You caught a virus.”

Oliver starts at the unexpected voice, nearly dropping the tablet he’s been trying to turn back on for the last hour. Turning around, he sees the same intern that he had only just managed to get out of his head. She’s dressed in a brightly colored but still slightly worn dress, with her hair back in its standard ponytail. She shows no visible sign of recognizing him (and that causes a brief stab of irritation) and she offers him a bright grin. “What?”

She points to the tablet. “You see the way it will start but crash? You caught a virus somehow. Do you watch a lot of porn? Porn sites have a lot of viruses, you know. Not that I watch it or anything. Or that you need it, I guess.” A hot pink flush stains her cheeks as it slowly dawns on her what it is she just said and her eyes open almost comically wide behind her black frames. Oliver is transfixed.

After a moment he manages to snap himself out of the funk and looks back at the tablet with a frown. “Do you know how I can get it off? I kind of need something off of it.” She lifts an eyebrow at him and takes the seat opposite himself. It’s almost eerie watching her transform from the slightly awkward girl to the focused expert in front of him.

“It would depend on what virus it was and what damage it did,” she replied, pulling out a stylus and tapping on the screen. Oliver makes himself look away when she starts chewing on the other end of the pen. She looks up at him and the lenses of her glasses flash, hiding her eyes from him. “If you wanted, I can take this home with me and see if I can rescue anything off of it?” The offer is timid, and he considers for a moment before nodding in acceptance.

It’s almost ludicrous to trust a person, a stranger, so implicitly that he’d leave something that wasn’t exactly cheap with them, but there was something about this girl that makes her seem trustworthy. Besides, as much as he wants the list of girl’s number back, it’s not like he couldn’t go out and buy a thousand new ones if he wanted to.

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” he starts as she slides the tablet into her bag. “I’m Oliver Queen.”

She flashes him another shy smile and his stomach swoops. “I know. I-I mean, I know who you are. I think everyone does, especially after that thing with the cop. It’s kind of difficult to forget that, considering how the tabloids loved it. And I’m going to stop talking right…now.” The fascinating blush comes back and Oliver isn’t even irritated by her apparent love of words.

She extends a hand, which he takes. “I’m Felicity Smoak. Nice to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tend to post these on my [tumblr](http://tititilani.tumblr.com/) before I post them here, so come say hi.


	5. training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Training begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been nearly two months, but the next part is up, finally. c: Hope you enjoy it, everyone. 
> 
> Nothing to warn about in this chapter.

His every bone aches and he can’t bring himself to lift the water Felicity had placed in his hand a few minutes ago, regardless of how thirsty he actually is. He leans propped up against a stack of crates and watches as Shado now attempts to teach Felicity on how to properly notch and fire an arrow.

The tech girl is arguably even worse at firing a bow than he is. If he wasn’t so exhausted, he might even be amused by how many times she had to go traipsing into the trees to track down her flyaway arrows.

After yet another arrow goes awry (he’s pretty sure she won’t be able to find this one), Felicity throws her hands up in the air. “Okay, I give up!” She exclaims. “I am not “Fire a bow and arrow” girl. I am “Remove the viruses you got on your computer from illicit porn” girl. If you need me to hack into something, then call me. I have the muscle strength of a wet noodle.” She wiggles her arms at this to prove her point.

Oliver is ashamed that for a split second he finds himself admiring the newly defined muscles he can see in her arms and shoulders. Even with her darker roots coming through, the copious amounts of sunlight have both lightened her hair and darkened her skin.

Shado looks vaguely amused. “There are no computers here for you to hack,” she informs the former IT intern. “You must learn to shoot or die.” Felicity pouts and Oliver drags his eyes away. He knows without looking that Slade is looking at him. The older man seems to have found some sick sort of amusement in watching Oliver pine after the blonde.

“What about some sort of hand to hand thing?” Felicity asks as a last ditch effort. “I’ve done, or did rather, yoga for a long time and I took some self defense classes last year. And, plus, my hand-eye coordination is a lot better than my hand-arrow coordination, apparently.

Shado hesitates, turning to look over at Slade. He shrugs at the unasked question. “I’m willing to teach her with a sword,” he says. Looking undeniably relieved, Felicity hands off the bow to Shado and moves to accept the sword Slade pulls out of its sheath and holds out to her. There’s a minute softening at the corners of Slade’s eyes when he looks down at her and Oliver frowns at the ugly feeling growing heavy in his stomach at the sight.

He then forgets about it when Shado lifts an eyebrow at him and holds out the bow in his direction. “Coming,” he sighs, groaning as he forces himself to his feet.

__

Later that night, Felicity climbs onto the makeshift cot with him and tucks her head into his shoulder as she does every night now. He doesn’t have the energy to talk after training today, and he suspects that she doesn’t either.

But then again, he’s been wrong before.

“I think I hate the sword more than the bow,” she says quietly. He tightens his grasp around her and presses a kiss into her hair. She lets out a deep sigh and he can feel some of the tension they both carry bleed out of her.

“It’ll get easier,” is all he offers in response. “And then we can go home and you can go back to being an intern yet running the entire IT department and I can…do whatever.”

“Go back to sleeping with nameless women?” She offers up timidly. He considers for a moment but ultimately shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I don’t want that anymore.” He doesn’t add that what he wants is to stay with Felicity even when they’re back in Starling, crawl into bed with her every night and wake up to her every morning. He knows that won’t happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You should definitely come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://tititilani.tumblr.com/), where this stuff gets posted first.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity return home to Starling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place right after they've returned home. I probably won't write this far ahead again, so I hope you guys enjoy this tease of what their future could be. :)
> 
> No triggers/warnings.

He’s not surprised to see her lying on the floor when he enter his bedroom, just as he isn't surprised to see that she had managed to get past the advanced security placed around and in the Queen manor and into his bedroom.

She’s lying on the floor close to the window and staring up out of the sky with only a pillow and a throw blanket she pulled from his bed. After closing the door and locking it behind him (it feels wrong to only have a flimsy lock between them and the world but he hasn’t had time to reinforce his personal security), he crosses to sit beside her on the carpeted floor.

“My bed is too soft,” she says as a greeting, rolling over to look at him. Her dark hair, sun bleached a thousand different shades, spills across his pillow and is stained silver in the moonlight. “I can’t sleep at all.” He knows the feeling. He hasn’t slept in his gargantuan bed at all. “I never realized how noisy this city was. The first time I heard a car alarm go off, I nearly threw a dagger out my window.”

Oliver chuckles and he slides next to her on the floor and she automatically rolls over to rest her head on his collar bone. After five long years of taking comfort in each other, physical conduct between them has long since become the norm and Felicity is the only person that he can tolerate invading his personal space for extended periods. He knows without asking that it is the same for her.

She is quiet for a moment. “I got asked to look at a computer today and I had no idea what to do,” she tells him. “I can barely write my name anymore, let alone navigate a touch screen.” Even though her tone is carefully blasé, Oliver knows her well enough to know how much it actually bothers her that she has lost her previous deftness with any and all machines. He tightens his grip on her shoulder, finger tips covering some of many scars and tilts his head down to kiss her briefly.

“I ran into Laurel today,” he tells her as a way to commiserate. She shifts and tension straightens her shoulders. He had come clean to her years ago about how he had exaggerated his single status when he had asked her to come onto the boat with him, and enough time had passed that he knew she wasn’t jealous.

“How did that go?” She asks cautiously, shifting slightly to look up at him. He shrugs,  a minute movement.

“About as well as you would expect,” he admits. “She was relieved that I was alive but still hurt that you were with me.” Felicity hums and presses closer against him comfortingly. Those long years on and off the island took their toll on her as much as they did him and while she is still more talkative than him, she is less so than she used to be.

He feels her breathing begin to even off as she starts to slip into the light doze that is now considered to be their deep sleep. He feels bad because he knows she needs sleep as badly as he does, but he presses his fingertips lightly against her spine and she starts back into consciousness and she opens an eye to look up at him. Faintly judgingly, he noted. “I’m going to do it,” he tells her firmly.

 She opens the other and twists slightly to look at him. “Okay,” she says. “Then I’m going to help you.”

“With the list?” He confirms warily. There had been numerous arguments over how they should handle the list he’d found in his father’s book, and there had been no conclusion.

She shakes her head. “No,” she tells him. “I’m not going to kill any more people than I have to, Oliver. You can do what you need to do with the list and I’m going to focus elsewhere on the other crimes that are rampant in this city.”

He shouldn’t be surprised that Felicity would refuse to help him finish what his father had left him, but he is. It would be just like her to want to avoid killing unless she had to. Even on the island, she only killed if she had to in order to survive and had never become as desensitized as he had to death.

“All right,” he agrees, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “We can handle it from two different angles.” She grinned at him, a brief flash of teeth, and she tucked her head against his collar bone again. “And once you master these new computers that are out now, you can make a computer hub the Batman would be envious of.”

He felt more than heard the chuckle she let out at the thought. Felicity let out a brief sigh. “That sounds wonderful.” She sounds positively eager for the prospect. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my personal belief that Felicity would never be as okay with killing as Oliver would be, hence her hesitance with the list. She would basically tackle the other crime around the city, while Oliver would deal with the list. :)
> 
> Come party with me on my [tumblr.](http://tititilani.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity finally finds a weapon she likes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking forward to this chapter for a while, and it was so much fun to write. 
> 
> Just as a heads up, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be ending this series here in three or four chapters. I'm quickly running out of ideas and I simply don't have the time to cover all five years, so I plan on covering a few of the big stepping stones instead. :)

“Felicity,” Shado calls, “Come here. I want to show you something.” Said girl looks up from the mess of wires she’d made of the last remaining electronics she could find from within the wreckage of the plan in an attempt to jury rig something that they could use to call for help. She hasn’t had a lot of hope so far, but she can only keep hoping. She misses coffee and the reassuring hum of her computer’s tower back at QC.

She idly wonders if her mother has realized something is amiss or if she’s going to wait until their twice a year phone call.

“Coming,” she calls back, getting to her feet and dusting off her knees. Her clothes are mostly filthy by this point so there’s no real point in the motion, but the normality soothes her. She sees Oliver glance over from where he is sparring with Slade as she passes, and the gap in his attention allows the other man to get in past his guard and smack him sharply on the knuckles.

She offers him a reassuring smile even as he turns back to the sword he dropped. She’s proud that all he does is shake off the pain in his knuckles once before picking up the sword and beginning again. The first time Slade had hit his knuckles, she feared he was going to cry. He’s come so far since they were stranded.

They both have, she realizes as Shado tosses her a short, wide blade and she manages to catch it without slicing off a finger and with minimal fumbling. She examines the blade as she approaches the other girl. The blade is a little rusty, but she’s confident in either Shado or Slade’s skills to be able to clean it up. It’s obviously seen better days but it’s still sturdy. The crossguard (she’s proud of herself for even remembering the correct term) crosses at the top of the hilt with one edge curving up and halfway up the blade.

“That is part of a pair,” Shado tells her as she nears. She shows her the other blade, an exact match for the one she already held. “These are called butterfly swords. Since you seem to utterly fail at the bow, Slade thought these might work for you. They are worn down but can be restored. They are versatile and can be used both offensively and defensively. This is called the _quillon_ ,” Shado gripes the extended part of the crossguard and deftly spins it so the blade lies flat against her forearm. “I will be showing you how to restore and use this.”

Felicity fumbles to mimic Shado’s motion and sees that the blade is just about the same length as her forearm. She’s already liking the weight of it in her hands and her hands curl comfortably around the grip. She glances up at Shado and sees approval in her dark eyes. “These can easily be hidden under loose clothing,” she says. “So you can always be armed.” She hands her the other blade and Felicity shifts to accommodate. It still feels awkward to hold the blades, but they feel infinitely more comfortable than the bow ever did.

“Good,” Shado praises.  
  


* * *

 

Felicity starts out of her light doze when Oliver dips the thin cot they’ve started sharing as he climbs on. They aren’t even trying to pretend that they have their own beds and they’ve just started squishing together on the thin cot every night. She turns on her side so he can fit better on the tiny frame.

She has no idea what kind of leg their relationship is on. Before the ship wrecked, they had been in a playfully flirtatious position that had been exhilarating for the girl who had her first kiss when she was nineteen. Now, all of his touches were strictly platonic and left her feeling confused.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” He murmurs, pulling her from her thoughts. His arm slings over her waist casually. Her glasses, which the lenses are slowly becoming more scratched and she’s babying them more, are off and carefully hidden but the blue of his eyes are still vivid even in the dim light of the wreckage.

She thinks for a moment, considering. “I’m all right,” she says finally. “I mean, I’m sore but not as sore as I was when we first started. I like my butterfly swords more than I like the bow, at any rate. How are you?”

“I can’t move my arms and Slade smacked my hands so much, I think my fingers fell off,” he tells her with a bright flash of his teeth in the cheeky grin that had her stomach swoop. She laughed softly.

“You’re doing a lot better, though,” she replies earnestly. In the dim light, she can see his look of embarrassment and she quiets down and rests her head on his arm.  “It is getting easier.”

“It is,” he agrees vaguely. She feels his lips in her hair and then she slips into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felicity's blades look like [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Wing_Chun_Hybrid_Blade_Style_Butterfly_Swords.JPG) (Warning: Very large image) except that the extended crossguard is longer to allow her to grip it.
> 
> I chose butterfly swords for Felicity after some thought and a lot of research. They are indeed very versatile and can be designed to maim instead of kill. They can be used as anything from brass knuckles to tonfas to sais and are only about a foot long. I felt they fit Felicity very well and wouldn't overwhelm her like I think a bow or long sword might.


End file.
